The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-10-01
ERRONEOUS TESTS OF FICTION,
BY W. b. IiowELs.


 as a test of merit in book. He seems to think, for instance, that the love of the marvellous and impossible in fic- tion, which is shown not only by "the minimizing multitude clamoring about the book counters" for fiction of that sort, but by the ''literary elect" also, is proof of some principle in human nature which ought to be re- spected as well as tolerated. He seems to believe that the ebullition of this passion forms a sufficient answer to those who say that art of all kinds should represent life, and that the art which misreprescnts life is feeble art and false art. But it appears to us that little carefullcr reasoning from a little closer inspection of the facts would not have brought him to these conclusions. In the first place we doubt very much whether the "liter- ary elect" have been fascinated in great numbers by the fiction in question; but if we suppose them to really have fallen under that spell we should still be able to account for their fondness and that of the "unthinking multitude" upon the same grounds, without hon. orlng either very much. It is the habit of hasty casuists to regard civ ilization as inclusive of all the mem- bers of civilized community: but this is palpable error. Many per- sons ill every civilized community live in state of more or less evident sayagery with respect to their habits, their morals and their propensities, and they arc held ill check only by the law. Many more are savage in their taste, as they show by the decoration of their houses and persons and by their choice of books and pictures i; and these are left to the restraints of public opinion. In fact, no man can be said to be thoroughly civilized or always civilized; the most refined, the most enlightened person has his moods, his moments of barbarism, in which the best, or even the second best, shall not please him. At these times the lettered and the unlettered are alike primitive, and their gatif- cations are of the same simple sort :; the highly-cultivated person may then like melodrama, impossible fic- tion and the trapeze as sincerely and thoroughly as a boy of thirteen or a barbarian of any age.
 We do not blame him for these moods; we find something instructive and interesting in them; but if they lastingly establish themselves in him we could not help deploring the state of that person. No one can really think that the "literary clect," who are said to have joined the "unthinking mul- titude" in clamoring about the book counters for the romances of mo- mans land, take the same kind of pleasure in them as they do in novel of Tol- stoi, Tourguenief, George Eliot, Thackeray, Balzac, Manzoni, flaw thorne, Henry James, Thomas Hardy, Palacio Valdes, or even Walter Scott. They have joined the "unthinking multitude" perhaps, because they are tired of thinking and expect to find relaxation in feeling-feeling crudely, grossly, merely. For once in way there is no great harm in this; per haps no harm at all. It is perfectly natural; let them have their innocent debauch. But let us distinguish, for our own sake and guidance, between the different kinds of things that please the same kind of people; be- tween the things that please them habitually and those that please them occasionally; between the pleasures that edify them and those that amuse them. Otherwise we shall be in dan ger of becoming permanently part of the "unthinking multitude" and of remaining puerile, primitive, savage. We shall be so in moods and at mo- mcnts; but let us not fancy that those are high moods or fortunate moments. If they arc harmless that is the most that can be said for them. They are lapses from which we can perhaps go forward more vigorously; but even this is not certain.
 Our own philosophy of the matter, however, would not bring us to pro- hibition of such literary amusements as the writer quoted seems to find significant of growing indifference to truth and sanity in fiction. Once more, we say, these amusements have their place, as the circus has, and the burlesque, and negro minstrelsy. and the ballet and prestidigitation. No one of these is to be despised in its place: but we had better understand that it is not the highest place, and that it is hardly an intellectual doliUht Tho lapse of all the "liteary elect" in the world could not dignify unreality :; and their present mood, if it exists, is of no more weight against that beauty i'll literature which comes from truth alone, and never can come from any thing else, than the permanent state ot the ''unthinking multitude"- Mype,'S Kugazine.
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